Arizona county GOP meeting ends in fisticuffs

[Newsjock]

Source: Arizona Daily Star

A Pima County Republican meeting ended in fisticuffs Thursday night.

As the monthly meeting was coming to a close, a verbal argument got physical between GOP executive committee members Mike Ebert and Jeff Bales, Bales said.

... Ebert began “a rant” about people in the Pima County Republican party he disagrees with, saying some Libertarians aren’t really Republicans. He singled out an unnamed candidate for office and Bales. Bales shot back, telling the room of about 20 people that Ebert was lying.

... The division is the “the result of establishment GOP insiders not liking the influx of patriots, which began with the Ron Paul folks years ago and most recently with Tea Party activity,” said Bales, a small business owner who has lived in Tucson for 22 years. “Tea Party folks and Ron Paul activists take a stand for integrity. All of them are willing to call out Republican politicians that are corrupt.”

Read more: http://azstarnet.com/news/blogs/pueblo-politics/gop-meeting-gets-physical/article_d42a9292-d2ad-11e1-861d-001a4bcf887a.html

[loli phabay]

1. lol gotta love it when pols go all MMA

[brewens]

2. Ya know, they should serve alcohol at those from now on I think! I'll even chip in! n/t

[kestrel91316]

10. Serve alcohol.......and allow folks to come armed,

locked, and loaded.

[Le Taz Hot]

20. I'm sorry, this is a TERRIBLE

to say. Especially after the massacre in Colorado.

[malaise]

29. Not really

ReTHUGs getting rid of ReTHUGs doesn't sound all bad.

[mindwalker_i]

33. It's pragmatic

Like in school when you tell someone that somebody else said the first guy's mama eats kitty litter, get you enemies to take each other out. It's a tactic that should be exploited. You know the Repubs do it whenever possible.

[kestrel91316]

34. I'm not discussing CO here. I am saying let the teabaggers

have and use all the guns they want in their little get togethers.

[markbark]

28. Alcohol, tobacco and firearms....

who brought the chips?

[Turbineguy]

3. I'd like to express my sorrow at the turn of events there.

Nah, fuckem. Let them beat the shit out of each other.

[freshwest]

8. Yee-sss!

[OffWithTheirHeads]

4. Thanks! My day is complete and I can go to bed happy.

What a bunch of Goobers.

[freshwest]

6. +1,000 !

[johnnie]

5. Why is this the first thing that comes to mind?

[freshwest]

16. I don't know. Maybe it's a generational thing? Puppets? Plastic? Fake? Help me out here.

[johnnie]

18. Probably a little of all

You don't need my help.

[kooljerk666]

27. A little more like this.....

Robots playing with robots..........

Bender needs a .45 acp, he got scared....

[struggle4progress]

7. Maybe now's a good time for GOP's folk to re-read Mary Shelley's old fable

about setting monsters in motion

[turtlerescue1]

9. These meetings held in a bar right?

[applegrove]

11. I, for one, cannot wait for the GOP convention. I think seeing how Romney's team tries to 'handle'

the tea party will be a riot.

[HooptieWagon]

12. Yep! And on national TV!

[Jessy169]

13. It might end up being more a case of how the tea party handles Romney

The Tea Partiers will be there. So will Ron Paul's dedicated cadre of whacked out patriots. I understand from a series of articles back a few months or so ago that almost everybody is going to be packing heat. Putting all those angry and irrational hot heads under one roof, all packing heat... Just think of the possibilities!

[bluesbassman]

14. I like all your observations, but think you mislabeled one...

Ron Paul's cadre of whackos are not patriots; they're "zealots". Huge difference IMO.

Belated welcome to DU BTW!

[xxqqqzme]

15. Zealots, yes indeedee

Describes them perfectly!

[applegrove]

17. Welcome to the DU!

[kooljerk666]

30. The best part of the convention is Florida is a plague state............

TB outbreak kept secret, only clinic in state for treatment GONE!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/09/florida-tuberculosis-outbreak-kept-secret_n_1658916.html

Wait till all the minimum wage workers at the convention, people serving your food & making your bed (hotel worker or hooker) are coughing all over the place.

I know Obama is Trying to help Ben Nelson, I would be to worried to shake peoples hands.
If i won 10,000 dollars & a free vacation in FL, I would turn it down, unless I could keep the cash & turn down the trip.

I called a lot of GOP cong. & senate offices & feigned concern they would be infected & carry it home. Responses were muted, scared & never honest.

I am sure I gave them a lot to worry about as the big 'vacation' approached.

[longship]

19. The Ayn Rand cult strikes again.

In the late 1970's Jerry (if he had an enema he could have been buried in a matchbox -- thanks, Christopher Hitchens, RIP) Falwell, and later, Pat Robertson, successfully took over the Republican party from the bottom up. They put their theocratic fundementalists into party positions, first at the precinct level, then bubbling up to the national level.

Now, Ron Paul, and his evil spawn -- named after that horrible Ayn Rand -- are doing the same game. They see the Republicans as weak due to their unbending ideology. So the Paulists, dare I say Rand cultists, are attempting to repeat the same game. They've had minimum, but prominent, success. They've taken over a few state Republican delegations, maybe about five or six, by my count.

But these noodleheads are doing just what Falwell, Robertson, and fucking Ralph Reed did decades ago.

And nobody's paying any attention to it. But I am. Because I have seen this game before. If you want to ideologically take over a political party in a country which has only two, you attack the weakest and make it your own. And if you can also manage to control the dialog, your weak party can become strong. (That is if you can portray the strong opponent as weak.)

I have lived with this political reality since I was young and naive. Now, I am older, but maybe still naive. However, the Republicans are weak now, weaker than any time in my memory.

So why is it that so many citizens don't see what I see? Why don't they see that Republican policies brought this great country to this sad state of affairs?

If we don't win in November, we're screwn.

[DCKit]

21. Bum fights. nt

[Berlum]

22. Republicans finally recognize that they are lying to each other

and of course also lying to the American people.

The Republicans absolutely deserve the right to beat the crap out of each other.

[Sanity Claws]

26. Good synopsis

[TeamPooka]

23. Love it. I need a cigarette after that story...

[pampango]

24. " the altercation is emblematic of a larger division within the Republican party between...

...Tea Party members who stand up for “integrity” within the party and the old guard of the Republican party.

The division is the “the result of establishment GOP insiders not liking the influx of patriots, which began with the Ron Paul folks years ago and most recently with Tea Party activity,” said Bales, a small business owner who has lived in Tucson for 22 years. “Tea Party folks and Ron Paul activists take a stand for integrity. All of them are willing to call out Republican politicians that are corrupt.”

Ebert is a commercial real estate broker and chairman of Legislative District 28. Bales is a lifelong Republican but he only became active in the party during the explosion of the Tea Party in 2009-2010. He was elected to his leadership position with the Pima County GOP in December 2010, he said."

Love to see these struggles between the gop base (teabaggers, libertarians, etc.) and the 'old guard' (corporate wing).

[eliminerlesud]

25. Tampa is starting to look like it will be a fun time for the Pubs!

Lunatic Pubs packing heat in Tampa, locked in for a good part of the day.

The result will be a few less Pubs on the voting roles.

[FSogol]

31. "the result of establishment GOP insiders not liking the influx of patriots" - LOLOLOLOLO

They want to run their county, but can't even run their own meeting without fighting.

[alcibiades_mystery]

37. "influx of patriots"

These people are really afflicted with a ridiculous self-regard.

[2pooped2pop]

32. what, no gunplay?

that was my husbands response.

[lonestarnot]

35. Yeah, at least they didn't shoot up the joint.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

36. Is this the same Pima County Republican Club goofed on by Borat?

According to wikipedia, almost all the people in Borat were not actors but real people in real settings who didn't realize they were being ridiculed. I don't know if there's more than one Pima County Republican Club out there, but if it's the same one, it's too bad they didn't save their fisticuffs for the movie. It would have fit right in. (If Borat's brand of humor offends you, please don't click)

&feature=player_detailpage

[immoderate]

38. It offends me. I like it.

--imm